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Poverty and pyrrhic victories

1^st April 2024

Poor families with children suffer more than most

In Britain, one of the world’s richest countries, one in six children in 2023 lived in families deemed to be suffering food insecurity, in plain terms, they did not have enough to eat. One in 40 children lived in a family that had accessed a food bank in the previous thirty days.

Relative poverty is defined as households with incomes of less than 60% of the median. Almost one in three children live in relative poverty in Britain. Absolute poverty is defined as households with less than 60% of the median income in 2011. One in four children live in such households in Britain. This represents the fastest rise in child poverty in almost 30 years.

Figure published by UNICEF show that last year child poverty in Britian rose fastest between 2012 and 2021 out of 39 OECD and EU counties, many of which actually succeeded in reducing child poverty over the same period.

At the same time the Sunday Times Rich List for 2023 identified 171 billionaires in Britain, their wealth having grown by £31 billion. For the Tories and the British ruling class this is no doubt something to herald as a success. That ‘success’ however is built at the expense of working class families who suffer disproportionately under capitalism. Not only is their labour exploited in order to extract the surplus value which results in the obscenity of billionaires, the tax and benefit systems designed by successive governments plunge them further into poverty and debt.

Tory tax and benefit reforms between 2010 and 2019 saw the poorest 10% of households lose 10% of their income, the biggest impact being felt by children with families, losing £4,000 per year over the period, or 20% of their income.

While local government services are starved of resources, and Councils around the country face draconian cuts or bankruptcy, the rich continue to rake it in. In the recent budget Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced further tax cuts which will benefit middle and high income earners the most, taking the amount forecast to be spent on tax cuts over the next five years to £65 billion. This is hardly surprising coming from a man who has recently stated that a salary of £100,000 a year is not such a high income. Tell that to the families in poverty losing £4,000 a year!

While inflation may now be at 3.4%, which only means that prices are going up by slightly less than they were before, a wide range of basic services are set to see price rises this month. The increase in Council tax, forced upon local authorities by cuts from central government, will be 5% on average. Broadband and phone contracts, now essential for most people, are set to rise by an average 8% while car tax and TV licence fees are also set to rise. Dental charges, for those lucky enough to be registered with a dentist, are also set to go up.

In spite of the scandalous profits and management failings of the water companies, bills are set to go up, in order to cover their losses and lack of investment. Instead of spending on renewed infrastructure and modernising ageing systems, shareholders have leeched billions in dividends out of the water companies over the years, while ordinary consumers are left to pay the bill. Added to the scandalous rise in the cost of other utilities, while the energy giants continue to make eye watering profits, it is easy to see how working class families are struggling to survive.

This is the true face of capitalism, where the many suffer and pay, while the few get richer and make hay. Previous Labour governments have attempted to mitigate the worst excesses of capitalism by introducing social programmes, improving access to education and having a less punitive benefit regime, while not presenting any fundamental challenge to capitalism as a system.

An incoming Labour government, led by Kier Starmer, is not even likely to go this far. There will certainly be no challenge to capitalism, that is guaranteed, but there will be little by way of mitigation either. Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has made it clear that she will not help Councils facing bankruptcy, for example. The commitment to investment in green infrastructure to create jobs and boost the economy has been diluted to virtual insignificance. There is no commitment to take back control of the key utilities, to prevent profiteering in essential services and exploitative bill rises.

With a General Election looming, getting rid of the corrupt Tory government must always be a priority. More than ever, that goal needs to be allied to mass extra Parliamentary action to pressurise the Labour leadership into actively pursuing policies, which will not just bolster the position of Britain’s billionaires, but address the needs of those accessing food banks, struggling to feed their families and being forced in the winter months to choose between heating and eating. Anything less and a Labour victory will be nothing more than pyrrhic.

Cracked Actors

10^th March 2024

Smug Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, prepares to reveal a pointless budget

A Tory budget could never be expected to deliver anything of significance for the working class or families living in areas of the highest deprivation across Britain. In that respect alone Tory Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, deserves top marks for consistency, as the heavily trailed pre-election budget revealed on Wednesday (6^th March) gave no hope of any alleviation of pain from 14 years of Tory rule for those most in need.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated that while Hunt’s budget contained an estimated £9 billion in tax reductions, previous budgets have increased the tax burden by £27 billion, scheduled to kick in from next year.

Not that there is anything inherently wrong with raising taxes, if the revenue collected is spent correctly. A commitment to investment in research, development and production of green technologies to reduce the amount of carbon pouring into the atmosphere would be a start. Greater investment in the training, retention and pay of NHS staff with a boost in emphasis upon Creative Health to reduce the burden at the acute end of the medical spectrum would be welcomed by most.

Abolishing the ‘right to buy’ for council housing, which sees any investment made by local authorities to increase the stock of affordable housing effectively privatised after a short period, would be welcome. The Chancellor could have considered the proper funding of local government as an area worthy of investment, given the growing number of local Councils posting section 114 notices, effectively declaring bankruptcy and having to limp along with under resourced statutory services only.

While Councils like Birmingham are cutting £300 million and Nottingham £53 million from their budgets the government are heralding Mayoral Combined Authority deals, creating a new tier of regional government with economic development, transport and housing powers but little to directly offer local communities. The North East Mayoral Combined Authority (NEMCA) is the latest recipient of this form of government largesse, covering an area from Berwick upon Tweed to Bishop Auckland, and able to access £4.2 billion in spend over 30 years.

The fact that the NEMCA budget is a drop in the ocean compared with the cuts endured by local authorities in the North East over the past 30 years is largely overlooked by local politicians desperate to sell the deal as good news. Local authorities overall have faced a 40% cut since the Tories lit the austerity bonfire in 2010, cheered on by their Liberal Democrat partners for the first five years.

Meanwhile local leisure, library, arts and museum provision continue to face significant reductions, or even closure, not being high on the government’s agenda. It is no surprise that they are services mainly accessed by communities in areas of high deprivation who are less likely to vote Tory or, increasingly, to vote at all.

The Daily Mail meanwhile sidesteps these concerns and bemoans the lack of any further money for the military in the budget, citing a report by the Public Accounts Committee that suggests the military is £29 billion short due to overspends, mismanagement and inflation. The Mail’s response to this has been to launch a campaign, Don’t Leave Britain Defenceless, calling on ministers to increase funding for the Armed Forces “in response to the growing threats around the world.”

The Ministry of Defence has always been famous for its poor budget management but to pour good money after bad to prop it up and to waste millions on more weapons of mass destruction when people are homeless and starving beggars’ belief.

Hunt’s big ‘rabbit out of the hat’ moment was a 2p reduction in the rate of National Insurance, in an attempt to grab the headlines of the Tory press. The reality is that the NI cut will be fine if you earn over £50,000 a year; you will save £1310 per annum. This is five times more than a worker on £20,000 and 15 times more than someone on £15,000 a year. So, the Tory position remains as ever, the well off do well, while the poor get punished!

Hunt was also keen to try and steal what few clothes Labour have by announcing the abolition of non-dom tax relief for those in Britian whose permanent address is elsewhere. However, there is the caveat of a five year transition period, so no doubt the tax dodgers at the top of the tree will, as usual, find new ways to avoid paying their fair share before this measure hits.

Whatever the Tories, the Daily Mail or its readers may think, the threat to Britian does not come from Russia or China, or even maverick international terrorism. The enemy, to coin a phrase, is within. The Tory Party, the billionaires and corporations which fuel and fund them, the military industrial complex which feeds off the belligerent pro-US foreign policy, are all the enemies of progress, enemies of the working class and enemies of change.

A budget by Jeremy Hunt or any other Chancellor, Tory or Labour, will not change this reality. Only mass extra parliamentary pressure for socialist change can begin the process of really transforming Britain in the interests of the working class. As Canadian poet and songwriter, Leonard Cohen, famously wrote “there is a crack in everything/it’s where the light gets in”. There is certainly a crack in capitalism and it is the light of socialism which needs to pour in.

Israel is not above the law

28^th January 2024

Supporters of a free Palestine demonstrate outside The Hague

The measures outlined by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has ruled that Israel’s actions in Gaza are plausibly genocidal, must be welcomed by all who support the cause of Palestinian liberation.

The ruling is a landmark in the search for justice for the Palestinian people. The ICJ decision will be relayed to the United Nations Security Council for consideration. The ruling orders Israel to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians and to do more to help civilians, who are currently suffering under daily bombardment by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). However, the ICJ stopped short of ordering a ceasefire as requested by the plaintiff South Africa.

Although the ruling contained no binding order upon Israel to stop the war in Gaza it is nevertheless a legal setback for Israel. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the decision was a welcome reminder that “no state is above the law”.

The ruling not only obliges Israel to stop all acts which are plausibly genocidal but equally obliges all states to cease funding and facilitating Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. The measures, all backed by at least 15 judges, also required Israel to ensure the preservation of evidence of alleged genocide and report to the court within a month.

In coming to its decision the ICJ did not have to find whether Israel had committed genocide, which will be determined at a later date, but only that its acts were capable of falling within the convention, which defines the war crime as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Nevertheless, the United States made its position clear ahead of the judgement, describing South Africa’s case at the ICJ as “meritless, counterproductive, completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, proclaimed in response to the ICJ ruling,

“Israel’s commitment to international law is unwavering. Equally unwavering is our sacred commitment to continue to defend our country and defend our people. Like every country, Israel has an inherent right to defend itself,” he said. “The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected.”

As ever the scared right to self defence is, for Netanyahu, one which applies to Israel but not to the Palestinians, whom Israel has been oppressing in the West Bank and Gaza for decades. The mantra that ‘Israel has the right to defend itself ‘ is increasingly seen as a right wing trope for justifying the Israeli regime treating Palestinians with impunity.

Solidarity organisations across the world have called upon all states to commit to upholding the ICJ decision to protect the rights, including the fundamental right to life of Palestinians in Gaza. The death of over 25,000 people, over 70% of whom are women and children according to the United Nations, cannot be justified by the IDF as a response to the actions of Hamas on 7 October 2023.

Such a disproportionate response, having been condemned by the ICJ, must now be condemned by the entire international community and every effort made towards supporting the call for an immediate ceasefire, a negotiated solution to end Israeli action and free hostages held by Hamas.

Most importantly the resolutions of the United Nations on the need for a two state solution, realising the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of a Palestinian state within agreed international borders, must be acted upon by all member states.

The ICJ ruling is to be welcomed as a vital step towards the realisation of the need to stop the current genocide in Gaza and take the first steps towards the establishment of an independent state for the people of Palestine.

However, the ongoing commitment of the United States and Britain to arm Israel, not take the Israeli government to task for its flouting of international law and to be, at best, lukewarm about the necessity of a Palestinian state, remain significant barriers to progress. In the short term the failure of either state to recognise the need to support the call for a ceasefire, in spite of the mounting death toll, is scandalous.

The fact that this shame is cross party, with the Labour leadership in Britian continuing to back the government’s position, including being in favour of air strikes against Yemen, adds urgency to the need to campaign for a change in British foreign policy.

As the Jewish diaspora gather to mark Holocaust Memorial Day over this weekend many are rightly appalled by the action of the IDF and the religious zealots around Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza. Opposition to the religious fundamentalists in the Israeli regime is growing both inside and outside Israel, many in the Jewish community increasingly regard the actions of Netanyahu and his war cabinet as not being carried out in their name.

The working class movement in Britain and across the world needs to stand in solidarity with those opposing religious fundamentalism in Israel, just as they support those opposing the theocratic dictatorship in Iran and religious zealotry in Saudi Arabia. The fate of the people of Palestine and the people of Israel may depend upon it.